


and minor catastrophes

by Starcrossedsky



Series: to be (im)perfect and (un)willing [2]
Category: Prey (Video Game 2017)
Genre: Canon-typical People Being Horrible, Everyone Lives Who Can Live, Gen, Implied/Referenced Medical Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:49:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29612460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrossedsky/pseuds/Starcrossedsky
Summary: And I need to be patient, and I need to be braveNeed to discover how I need to behaveAnd I'll find out the answers when I know how to askBut I speak a different language and everybody's talking too fast.Not everyone who came back from Talos I came back bearing wounds from the Typhon.Some wounds only other humans can give you.(Acrown of successionsidestory.)
Relationships: Emmanuella DeSilva & Morgan Yu
Series: to be (im)perfect and (un)willing [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2175600
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	and minor catastrophes

**Author's Note:**

> hello friends and companions! Please enjoy this. It isn't required reading for _crown_ \- and in fact _crown_ isn't required reading for _minor catastrophes_ , given that it's 100% a prequel. PLEASE NOTE THE TAGS as this fic deals with survivorship not just of Alien Outbreaks but also violations of consent and bodily autonomy, both sexual and not.
> 
> pushes over all the canonical "main" characters in favor of the one with two spoken lines I guess.
> 
> (Title/summary lyrics from KT Tunstall's _Miniature Disasters_.)

You feel, more than you see, when Talos I blows. The escape pod has long since drifted well out of the immediate reach of the station - prepared for exactly this eventuality - and it _should_ protect you from the radiation that is no doubt spilling from the overloaded fusion reactor.

It makes Frank stumble. You lift your leg and shove his shoulder away with your foot. The possibility of turbulence in space isn't why you kept the straps over your shoulders. That's not what you're worried about pulling you out of your seat. 

Frank goes to the windows. You don't follow.

It isn't until the shape of a shuttle blocks the sunlight out, and you hear Morgan's voice from your Transcribe over the sound of the pod's automated docking system, that you even consider undoing your harness.

You never thought you'd be so grateful for a man asking if you needed a lift.

\----

Inside the shuttle, you sit across from Danielle Sho, immediately, forcing Frank into the empty seat next to Alex. Danielle looks as strung-out and wrecked as you feel, and she's breathing jaggedly.

Even as exhausted as you are, you can't stop being a doctor. You might be the only _medical_ doctor left. "Any injuries?" you ask, as Morgan shoves the door shut and the escape pod floats off to join the rest of Talos as wreckage.

"Not that I know of," he says. "But Chief Sho had a close call with _actually_ becoming space junk, so - "

"I'm _fine_ ," Danielle protests. Her breathing is ragged and her throat is hoarse. "My brain and my stupid lungs just think I'm not."

You nod at Morgan's _see what I mean_ look. "If you'd prefer, I can take a look in the back," you say. "I know the cabin isn't the most private - "

Danielle laughs, slamming her fist on the shuttle folding table before she points at the passenger information board. "We're not going to do any better for privacy back there, trust me."

You focus on the screen, lit up in TranStar's preferred blue-green.

> PASSENGERS:  
>  CABIN: 8  
>  HOLD: 34

You swear, loudly in Spanish, and Danielle just shakes with silent laughter again. "Yeah," she says. "Last and only ship off Talos, so it's a little over capacity."

"There weren't any other..." _Escape pods_ , you don't finish.

But Danielle shakes her head, anyway, an answer you didn't need.

You level a glare at the next table over, at Frank and Alex, not sure which of them is really the more responsible party. Alex Yu, at least, looks suitably contrite, looks... almost broken, really.

"I should really listen to your chest, at least," you say.

Danielle starts to shake her head, coughs. But before you can say anything more, a voice from the front half of the cabin cuts in, "You should listen to the doctor, Chief Sho."

Mikhaila Ilyushin stands, in that way that brooks no argument, and crosses the cabin of the shuttle. She settles between your table and Frank and Alex's, her back to you, her arms folded.

"You are alive now," she says. "For better or for worse. Morgan, get over here and help me give them some privacy."

Morgan blinks at her like he's not entirely sure where he is ( _check for head trauma_ , you note down in a distant part of your mind), but obediently comes over and forms the next part of a human privacy barrier, his back to you. Sarah Elazar and a shaven man in a green and white suit that you don't recognize follow him, all of them hip-to-hip and shoulder-to-shoulder.

For the first time in fifty-something hours, you can't see Frank Jones, and he can't see you. It shakes you down to your bones. 

You don't sob, because he can still _hear_ you, but how could it not be obvious on your face, the way you glance at the place in Morgan's back where his face is and squeeze your eyes shut?

Danielle sighs, and shoves the cups off the table to the floor before folding it up. "Okay, doc," she says, with bluster in her voice. You look up, and there's none of it on her face - only concern, and the tightness of shared pain. "Let's get this over with."

She reaches out and squeezes your hand. You squeeze back.

"Sorry," you say in your professional voice. "I don't have a scope, so we're going to have to get up close and personal here."

"That's fine," Danielle says. "Nothing we both haven't dealt with, right?"

"Right," you say. And you try to listen to her breathing, when she undoes the top of her suit so that you can hear through the vacuum-proof layers.

But if you're honest with yourself - and you have to be - what really happens in that corner of the shuttle away from Talos I, hidden behind the bodies of people who were strangers only a few short days ago, is that Danielle Sho takes you into her arms and lets you cry.

\----

You drift off to the sound of relieved voices, once the human wall has dispersed, when Morgan brings up the idea of Earthside food. You don't want to think about food right now. You remember forcing yourself to drink half a bottle of water, because it's been fifty-something hours in an escape pod when you couldn't leave your seat and you're dehydrated and nasty in almost every possible way. The idea of eating is appalling. The voices are nice.

You wake up thinking about cheesecake, which is probably the most pleasant dream you could hope for. Danielle is shaking you awake, with a hand on your shoulder, and you almost, _almost_ hit her.

She must see it in your face, because she snaps her hand back with a speed borne of - whatever the hell was going on on Talos while you were in that pod, you suppose. It feels like the first time, when you notice the shotgun slid into the space between her seat and the wall. 

"Sorry, doc," she says. "But someone had to wake you, we're landing soon and we've got to get off the shuttle as soon as we can, you know?"

You don't know, not really. But you understand enough, to know that your nap was snatched fortunate hours between heaven and Earth, and so you nod. You aren't surprised that you slept the whole way, feel like you could sleep more, sip at your half-empty water instead. 

Danielle tilts her head in the direction of the table across from you and says, "Thought you might want to use the bathroom before _that_ guy wakes up."

You risk a glance. Frank is asleep, the way _he_ slept in the pod, fearlessly and without regard for what might happen. Alex is awake across from him, silently staring at a solitaire spread in front of him. His glasses are gone, a detail you hadn't noticed earlier.

You whisper Danielle a thanks and slip into the tiny space between the hold and the cabin where the compact, airplane-style bathroom lies. You don't look at yourself in the mirror. You don't want to know what that woman looks like, right now. You barely want to see the strands of your hair that have come loose to fall in your face.

The toilet gives you a "Refuse capacity: 75%" warning when you flush. You want to stay in the bathroom forever, but unfortunately, it's the only toilet for forty-three people, so you can't.

When you come out, Mikhaila Ilyushin has taken your seat, and is chatting with Danielle about the data vaults in Deep Storage. She gives you a significant look, and pauses to say, "Sorry, doctor. Did you want your seat back?"

You give her a weak smile. "It's fine," you say. "I'll just steal yours."

Mikhaila nods. "By all means," she says, as though it isn't incredibly obvious that she and Danielle got into conversation for exactly that purpose. You want to cry again, don't, sit up in the front of the cabin with Igwe, Elazar, and the stranger instead. You realize that the front of his suit has a volunteer serial number on it.

Well. Whoever said that the evil you know is the better one has clearly never spent fifty hours with it in an escape pod, hoping someone will find you before you run out of clean water. (You were never worried about food, as much as Frank stressed about it. Lack of water will kill you first, and anyway, if it came down to survival cannibalism you know who would die, and it would _not_ be you. There is only so much _Do no harm_ in you.)

The point is, you'll take the Russian convict, hands down. He stood up for Danielle's privacy screen without being asked, that's enough for you.

"Do any of you have crackers?" you say. "Or something else simple? I finally feel like I can eat again."

"Here," Sarah Elazar says, sliding you a half-full box of Spiralites. "Not exactly crackers, but it's what we have."

"I'll take it," you say. Cookies are still simple carbs, sugar and starch. "Thank you."

They're a little stale, not quite as crunchy as they should be, but still sweet. They taste like heaven. Across from you, Igwe is moving his fingers on the table like he's playing an invisible piano. You don't ask. 

"I think Morgan still has some of those bananas, if you want," the volunteer offers. His accent is _extremely_ American for a Russian convict. "Probably kind of bruised at this point, but..."

"I'll see if I can keep these down first," you say. Your water bottle is empty. You get another, return to your seat. "You could give me your name, instead."

"Oh," he says. "Right, sorry - Aaron Ingram. It's a pleasure to meet you, doctor."

The name rings a bell. "Weren't you on one of the program success posters?" you say. "Shipped back to Earth rehabilitated? What were you still doing on Talos?"

Aaron looks spooked, and starts, "Well, you see - " before Sarah cuts him off.

"That's a Morgan and Alex question," she says. "For later."

"Later," you say. "I can do later." You have a lot of questions that are probably 'later questions.'

The intercomm buzzes. "Buckle your fucking seatbelts," comes the voice of the man who must be piloting, which you also don't recognize. You also can't imagine any professional pilot swearing at his passengers, but then again, perhaps today's situation is deserving of it. "Re-entry starting in two minutes. Apparently your CEO is having me drop the lot of you in Hawaii, so enjoy your tropical vacation, scientists and scumbags."

You buckle. "Hawaii?" you say. "Not Seattle?"

"Oh, right, you slept through the excitement," Sarah says. "TranStar has let all of us go, emphatically. Our severance consisted entirely of explosives in the hold. Disarmed now, thankfully, thanks to Officer Cool's foresight."

"Fuck," you say, and then add a few other choice expletives under your breath. You think of your mother, the neuromods and other experimental medication you weren't able to get to her. You think of your sister and her children, so proud of you and excited to hear about you working in space.

You can only pray that they don't get caught in any blowback from this. Except you're not sure you can even do that, anymore.

The shuttle starts the gentle shaking of re-entry. It's probably worse for everyone in the hold. You can at least count your blessings.

"Alex says there's an abandoned facility in Hawaii where we can go to ground, at least for a while," Sarah continues. "Let's hope it's as abandoned as he says it is. Wouldn't be the first case of TranStar lying to its employees if it wasn't."

You glance around - at the volunteer who was supposed to be Earthside. At the closed door, separating the cockpit from the rest of you. Morgan was also supposed to be Earthside. At Alex, sitting almost forlornly and putting his cards away.

"No," you agree, "it wouldn't."

\----

You land in Hawaii. You're not sure, exactly, what gets you all through the door without a million inspections. Maybe it's Alex's money. Maybe it's the haggard way all of you look.

From the strange way the guards act around Morgan, you're not sure if it's any of those things. But you let yourself get loaded onto a bus with the others anyway, taking over the back seats for Trevor Young, who is conscious but only barely responsive.

Trevor's the worst off, but it quickly becomes clear that there are two kinds of injuries among the survivors: The ones that don't need your help for gashes and bruises, and the ones that really aren't within your ability to treat.

Three concussions. Two cases of severe electrical burns - Austin's, two days old already, seems to have caused nerve damage. Whatever the hell happened to Trevor that made him so empty-eyed and non-responsive. You're almost _relieved_ to set Salman's broken ankle, because at least that's something you know how to do, even if broken bones aren't anything you've handled in a very long time.

Over the course of it, and the long, crowded bus ride from the space port to the sea port, you slowly start to piece together what happened.

One, Alex was keeping some kind of _top secret people-eating aliens_ in the belly of the station, mostly in Psychotronics, and the damn things broke containment and started eating people.

Two, one kind of these aliens has the ability to mind-control people. Over half the survivors were affected by it, broken out by Morgan either blowing up the aliens controlling them or knocking them out. 

Three, Morgan Fucking Yu (this part was told to you by Danielle, hence the expletive, which you're inclined to keep) was _also_ locked in the belly of the station, testing neuromods that gave him the powers of the aforementioned aliens.

Because, four, all neuromods - _all_ neuromods - are made from tissue harvested from these aliens. And oh, going along with that, five, straight from Morgan's own mouth: neuromod removal wipes people's memory. He doesn't remember anything from the last three years and had to be reintroduced to most of the people he saved.

You don't attempt to process this information. It's too much, really. You'll deal with it when you have the chance to sit down and _deal_ with it, and for now you just box it all up and dig out the box of skills you learned back on your emergency room rotation, years and years ago. The care skills, _and_ the people skills, because the shuttle flight wasn't long enough for anyone to rest in anything except the literal sense. Ekaterina won't be pried away from the Security Team. Rodney hasn't stopped shaking since you got off the shuttle. 

Morgan is apparently still in rescue everyone mode, because he tries to drive the boat he finds for you, the boat you're not entirely sure he hasn't stolen, when you get to the port.

"Absolutely not," you say. "You are going to go below decks and _sleep_ , Doctor Yu. And then you're going to get up and help me figure out what's wrong with you and _everyone else_ , because I'm not a neurologist and you don't have a medical degree but between the two of us I think we might be able to pretend long enough to get everyone some real treatment."

It's telling, the way he glances around, the way he doesn't calm down at all until Sarah Elazar folds her arms and says, "I drove a truck through a war zone, Morgan. I can handle a boat for a couple hours."

"Okay," he finally says. "But, Dr. DeSilva, I should warn you - my memory's full of holes. Even more than it should be. I don't know how much of that Doctorate I still _have_."

You inhale. Exhale. "How many times have you had neuromods removed, Morgan?"

"You think I know?" he says, and it's... both angry and bitter with despair. "Ask Alex. Maybe _you_ can get a fucking straight answer out of him."

_Ah_ , you think. _So that's how it is._ You're no psychologist, but you know trauma when you see it. Though, really, the entire situation is a pressure cooker for ongoing trauma. 

"If we can get to a hospital, or even a place with real medical facilities, it will help," you say instead, gently.

"I don't know," Morgan says. "I don't know how much effort Dad is going to put into making us dead."

Oh, that's just what you love to hear. William Yu has _personally_ signed your extrajudicial death warrant. No wonder Morgan is possibly-mind-controlling you through security checkpoints and stealing boats. It's probably not a _good_ idea, but what else can he do? What else can any of you do, at this point? You can't blame bad choices on sleep deprivation when there aren't any good ones.

(And the part of you that stubbornly got As in all your psych courses anyway notes that yes, William Yu is still his father, and that makes all of it worse, in some detached, clinical tone, before putting it with the rest in the box.)

"Okay," you say. "Okay. Well, try to sleep. Even shit like this is easier to handle when you're not sleep deprived."

He looks you over, seems to decide that you're speaking from knowledge or experience or both, and says, "Okay." Just like that, seemingly going as glassy-eyed as Trevor for a minute, and then he just...

Curls up where he is and falls asleep, right there in the corner against the wall.

Sarah Elazar sighs. "It was like this in the Cargo Bay when he showed up, too," she says. "Once he decided it was safe, he just keeled over. Might have been the only time he slept through the entire outbreak."

"You should get some rest, too," you say.

"I know," Sarah agrees. "Don't tell Morgan, but I'm not driving any boats today. Grainger had a yacht in his pro days, apparently, he's the one driving."

"Good enough for me," you say.

\----

You realize somewhere along the line, during the boat ride, that you have no idea where the shuttle pilot went. You never even saw him.

When you ask, Mikhaila Ilyushin tells you, "He was an assassin William Yu sent to 'clean up' the survivors on Talos. The only reason he helped us was because Morgan and Igwe wiped his memory of the orders by uninstalling some of his neuromods. We're better off without him."

Which, at that point all you can do is nod along. That may as well happen. 

( _Do no harm_ , you repeat to yourself. You're just grateful that you didn't have to make that decision.)

(Morgan made too many decisions that no one should have had to have made, especially not a man missing at least three years of memories with who knows how much alien material shoved in his brain.)

(You're glad now that those neuromods didn't get to your mother after all.)

Harley, under directions from Alex, drives the park to one of the middle islands, the ones that don't get much in the way of tourism. You think the actual name is Molokai; you're not that familiar with Hawaiian geography.

It's a sunny, perfect day on the ocean, as the crowded boat pulls up to a weathered set of wooden docks. Only one building is visible, a hulking shape set into the side of the nearest volcano, a weather-beaten TranStar logo near its highest point.

"Welcome to TranStar Pacific," Alex says, with a welcoming gesture that feels as out of place as the idealized sunny sky. It should be cloudy and grey, you feel, to better suit the somber mood.

"Do you have to say it like that?" Danielle says. "Might as well be welcoming us to Jurassic Park."

"I'd take the dinosaurs," says Sam from the security team. "At least they don't turn into trash cans."

"Is it safe?" Sarah says to Alex, adjusting her gun in its holster. Morgan gave her a golden pistol in place of her old one. You're not sure exactly what it means.

"It should be," Alex says. "It's been abandoned since shortly after Talos I was completed, in theory."

"In practice, TranStar could be hiding secret operations from you just as much as the rest of us," Sarah says. "Right. Security up front, let's check it out before we let the civilians in."

She looks over her shoulder and adds, "Morgan, stay here and cover our asses if things go to shit." You think it must be her way of making sure he doesn't try to push himself any more than he already has. There's no way he's gotten enough sleep.

The security team leaves. Some of the more awake members of the group get into a discussion about a Jurassic Park children's show that was on Netflix in the early 20s. You focus on keeping people between yourself and Frank.

You overhear Aaron asking, "Isn't this supposed to be a National Park or something?" and Mikhaila's answering, "TranStar can buy anything," and decide to stick close to the two of them. With Sarah gone and Morgan dead on his feet, you figure the head of engineering and the condemned criminal are the next scariest people to stand beside.

Thank God Frank's still a coward.

\----

It takes only two hours for Sarah to declare the building clear. "No power," she says over TranScribe, "but nothing nastier than some spiders in here."

You don't have nearly enough flashlights for everyone. Morgan makes some kind of flame pillar on the edge of the jungle, and a couple people make makeshift torches out of it. You haul the medkits you took from the shuttle. You stay glued right behind the glow of Mikhaila's flashlight.

You wish you didn't remember so much of that first night. You wish you didn't remember sitting up, the same way you did in the escape pod, except this time there are so many more people around you. You don't mind remembering Ekaterina falling asleep next to you after crying out all her tears of relief that she was finally, finally somewhere safe, but you wish you could forget envying her that feeling of relief. You don't mind remembering the moment the emergency lights flickered to life, when Mikhaila found the geothermal generators somewhere else in the depths of the complex, but you wish you could forget the way the sudden flicker of red had made you feel _seen_ , had sent you reaching for the pistol Ekaterina had lying at her other side.

But almost everyone else is asleep, too exhausted still to even twitch in response to the lights coming on at such a low level, and you exhale and slide your fingers slowly and deliberately away from the gun.

It's pointless anyway. You don't even know how to shoot.

( _Do no harm._ )

\----

With the power on, people start drifting off to explore the complex properly as they wake up. You stay mostly where you are, so you can be easily found in case of an emergency.

(You tell yourself that that's the reason, that it's not because you don't want to get caught alone in this place. You can almost believe it.)

A couple of hours later, Alfred Rose approaches you.

"We found the medical bay," he says. "It's as old and dusty as everything else in this place, but we thought you should look it over."

"Oh," you say. "Yes, that would be..." It's what you should do. But something tightens in your throat.

Alfred looks you over, and says, "I'm busy running around tracking people down, but Kevin's free if you want an escort."

"Yes," you say, relieved, scared to be grateful. "Thank you."

\----

Kevin Hague is quiet with the kind of heavy grief that everyone has, but different, more personal. Everyone lost friends (except, perhaps, for Morgan, who can't remember any friends he once had on Talos, lost or not), but Kevin and Nicole had been married for years. You think they were planning to finally have children, the next time their contracts with TranStar were up. 

Your memory isn't clear enough to say for sure, but you certainly aren't going to ask.

"Thank you for this," you say.

"It's still my job," he says. "Security work is as much about making sure people feel safe as it is about actually keeping them safe. No matter what it is they're afraid of."

He looks at you like he knows. You don't confirm anything.

"Let's grab a trash can or something," you say instead. "Any supplies we find are sure to be expired, but we can at least get them cleaned out."

Kevin doesn't object to the 'we,' and stays with you the whole time. When you're done, the exam room is far from ready for use - a sterile environment of any kind is a pipe dream right now - but at least the expired medications and everything else that's too old to be usable are gone, leaving room for you to fill in the stocks you need.

You don't even know everything you're going to need. Your Transcribe has a full kit of medication Fabricator plans, but that doesn't do you much when you don't even know if there's one here. You have a general idea of everyone's health before the outbreak - TranStar only allowed the healthiest people to go into space in the first place - but aside from Austin's hormones, you don't even know what medication everyone needed on the station, nevermind what they might need now.

You miss Regina fiercely. You haven't been able to bring yourself what happened to her.

You and Kevin pile your bags of trash next to the outdated Recycler and set to work on scrubbing the dust out of the exam room. You wish the work was harder, because then your mind would wander less.

\----

Mary Malinaro's having trouble with her fine motor control; her fingers shake and sometimes won't respond at all. Ike Stewart has had three minor seizures since Morgan freed him from alien mind control. Salman Kapoor has blurry vision and can't keep his balance terribly well.

All three are complications from concussions that weren't treated properly at the time. Not that you can blame anyone for that - not Morgan for not being able to catch them all when they collapsed (in the empty pool, for Mary and Salman; on the Fitness Center stairs for Ike), not Emma for doing the best she could with training designed to handle muscle strains and sprains, not head injuries. 

Trevor Young is another layer of neurological mess all together; he tends to follow Morgan, Alex, or Igwe around, looking emotionless but fully alert. It's just that he doesn't seem to have any motivation to act on his own, outside of basic things like feeding himself. He's quiet, in the way everyone from Psychotronics got quiet eventually, but it's somehow worse with him, like there was something broken in his brain even without any evidence of a real head injury.

"Neuromod cycling, combined with being under Telepath control for... I don't know," Morgan says. "Days, at least. A lot longer than the others."

"Three days when the outbreak hit," you say. "I was there when he was brought into quarantine."

You remember that Trevor clearly, his erratic behaviour, muttering under his breath and pulling at his head. DeVries had refused to allow anyone other than himself and Mattias Kohl access to him, even for meals. (Not that Trevor had eaten them, though he'd at least taken on water.)

"Almost four by the time I found him, then," Morgan says. "Shit, I think the longest anyone else was under was like, nine or ten hours."

"We'll just have to keep an eye on him," you say. "That's all we can do."

Morgan Yu isn't a medical doctor, for all the degree in Neuroscience requires basically the same undergraduate education. But he knows the most about everything that went on on the station, even if he's forgotten half of it and the half he does have is pieced together from messages to himself, reading every email he could get his hands on, and procedural memory. 

He isn't held to the same ethical standards you are. He isn't held to any ethical standards at all, except the ones he seems to have carved out of himself, the ones he built in in place of the memories of what he did.

He also very much does not want to be examined _himself_ , and has brought up just about every other crew member instead in order to delay it. You aren't sure that you can blame him.

(Kohl's office was soundproofed, but you would have had to be deaf to miss the way Morgan was yelling on his way out, after his final appointment there. You are not deaf. Not that it would have been the first time someone left Kohl's office while still having a screaming match with the man - Danielle Sho is as notorious for it as they come - but it was unusual for Morgan. The two of them had been, you'd thought, more like friends than was really professional.)

"Did you talk to Mikhaila yet?"

You can't blame Morgan, and you're trying not to push him, but _God_ is his dodging starting to get irritating.

"No," you say. "Is there a reason I should? Chief Ilyushin didn't mention any injuries before."

"It's not an injury," Morgan says. "It's... I don't know if I should say."

"You haven't had any issue with sharing private medical details on any other members of the crew," you say blandly. Not that you object, precisely, right now, because Morgan's tally of injuries and situations is uncannily accurate and gives you as good a picture as you're going to get, but it's still the ethics of the thing.

"That's related to the outbreak," Morgan says. "This is... different. It's from before that."

"Did you get her pregnant?"

Morgan jerks, clearly not expecting _that_ question. "Jesus Christ, no. We broke up in October. According to the notes I left myself, anyway."

_Thank God for that_ , you think to yourself. You mentally add birth control to the list of things to start Fabricating as soon as Mary is able to get the prototype one Rani and Oliver found out of the labs and working. "What is it, then?"

"It's..." Morgan looks legitimately like he'd almost rather go back to his own examination than tell you. "No. You'll have to ask her yourself. You can tell her I'll yell at her if she doesn't, though."

You sigh. (It reassures you, somehow, that he has some standards, some lines he won't cross.) "Okay," you say. "Can you tell me what's going on with you?"

Morgan freezes. "I don't know if there's anything you can do to help me either way."

"Maybe not," you say. "But it's my job to try anyway."

That draws a bitter laugh from him. "And we're all just doing our jobs here," he says. "I know. You're trying, I'm just... being difficult."

"You were used in neurological experiments without your consent," you say. 

"But I did consent," Morgan says. "I agreed to it. It's on video."

And oh, you know where you've seen this before. You remember, your emergency room rotation, and she was eighteen but her boyfriend was twenty-one, and - 

"You didn't consent," you tell Morgan Yu. "You withdrew your consent, and they kept going anyway."

You don't name the party responsible, even though you know who really did this. If Morgan isn't ready to blame Alex, you won't, you _can't_ push him there.

( _Do no harm_ was so much easier, a week ago, when the lines between good and harm were black and white like the phases of the moon.)

Morgan looks at you, and puts a hand to his face, pushing the heel of his hand into his eye. It's the one red from the number of neuromods he's put into it in the last few days, the one you're worried might have permanent damage.

"Morgan..." you say, hesitantly.

"It's not my place to judge anyone," he says. "That's why I saved everyone I could. Even if they were awful, even if they deserved it. After what I've done... It's not my place."

"It is when it's your body," you say. "When it's your mind."

Morgan shakes his head. "You wouldn't say that if you knew what I did," he says. 

"Of course I would," you say. You drew yourself up, fold your arms. (Your sister used to call this your mom voice. It's not the first time you've used it on an uncooperative patient. You wish it worked better outside the exam room.) "It doesn't matter what you've done. You have the right to control what happens to your body, and your mind." 

The last part is new, but the world is always changing. The world has changed so much, in the last three years. The world will keep changing, and you need to be able to adapt to it.

"It doesn't matter," you say, voice a little softer. "I'd give that much to even the person I hate most in the world."

Morgan winces. "Well, at least I know who's in the lead for that one," he says quietly.

You've been trying so hard not to think about that. You've been trying so hard to be professional.

For so much of this, it's been the only thing holding you up. And there's Morgan Yu, snipping at the ropes.

You drop into your chair with an exhausted noise. 

"I was thinking about killing him," you say. "When you came by outside, when we heard the shooting - I had almost made up my mind. I thought I was going to die, but at least I could have - at least it wouldn't have been him."

"I found Drew's TranScribe," Morgan says. "And the emails on your computer."

He says it like he can get the picture. And maybe he can. But you're not sure how much of it Morgan Yu - who isn't a _big_ man by any means, only an inch taller than you standing straight, but who doesn't give off any aura of vulnerability (except right now, in your office, with one eye bloodied by neuromod needles and the other not looking much better) - you're not sure how much of it Morgan Yu can ever _really_ understand.

(But then. Maybe he can. The brain is a part of the body, and he's lost, lost, _lost_ so much of it to other people reaching in and taking pieces of him out - )

"I wish I could say it was for Drew," you say. "That it was vengeance for all the people he locked out. But it wouldn't have been."

It would be easy to say that it was to protect yourself, and it would have been that, too. But that isn't the whole reason.

"You know why I didn't?" you say. "Because I know what happens to a dead body. A corpse doesn't have control over its muscles. They shit and piss themselves even before they rot, and I didn't want to deal with the smell in that tiny-ass escape pod."

There. There it is, the thing you've been thinking about in the depths of your smallest self, where no one else would see. The only reason Frank Jones is alive is because you refused to deal with his shit for that one last time.

And Morgan - God help you, Morgan looks for a moment like he's going to laugh. He shakes his head, and says, "Well. That explains a lot of the nasty smells I ran into on Talos, honestly."

And then somehow, you're laughing, too. Maybe not laughing, but chuckling, smiling - 

(It's the Morgan you remember, the Morgan who doesn't remember you, who was so easy to be friends with when he came in. The Morgan no one saw for those last few months, the Morgan no one questioned not seeing.)

Morgan laughs too, then, and it's absurd, but it's the first time you've felt anything like safe. It's comforting to know, that on the list of the worst people to escape Talos, to at least one person, you don't even rank, even with the worst part of yourself laid bare.

"You're probably the best doctor I've ever had, you know," he says at length.

"You're one of the worst patients I've ever had," you shoot back, still at ease, something relaxing between your shoulders. "At least let me look at your eye."

Morgan sighs like you're making him complete some task of great effort, but he lets you see his eye. He pulls away from any touch, not letting you do more than listen to his pulse (and that with him holding the end of the stethoscope you found in a box, at that), but he lets you look. You can't really ask for more than that. He's underweight - more so than the others, you've all lost weight these last few days in a way that makes you professionally concerned and personally exhausted - and is still sporting the signs of extensive use of medkits and psi hypos both. You don't have it in you to admonish him for either.

"Are you going to be okay?" he asks when you're done. "With Frank still being here?"

You frown at him, and say, "Are you going to be okay, with Alex being here?"

Another look like he wants to laugh, but this one is broken, somehow, blown to fragments like those great ostentatious windows in the Arboretum. Something alien reaches out from between the cracks, the way that giant Typhon closed around the station and reached _in_ , so large it dwarfed Talos completely, so large you feel sure someone must have seen it from Earth. (So, yes, the comparison is completely in proportion to Morgan's issues.)

"He's my brother," Morgan says. "That still means something, even after everything, doesn't it?"

"Only if you want it to," you say, firmly. You can't force Morgan to draw a line in the sand, if he doesn't want to, but you can at least show him where he _can_ draw it.

To your surprise, he hugs you. It's a flash of motion that you're not entirely sure is human for how fast it happens. (You haven't asked, not sure if Morgan would answer, exactly what he can do. You're not sure if he _could_ answer.)

It makes you freeze up, at first, but there's nothing _demanding_ in the contact, and it ends before you can decide consciously how to react to it.

"You're a good person, doc," Morgan says. "Keep hold of that. We're going to need it."

And then he's gone, _definitely_ too fast to be human, a black trail in the air that dissipates all too quickly. You're left holding the thought that there's probably no one in the facility who needs human contact more than Morgan Yu, if only to remind him what being human is.

(If he'd stayed a moment longer, you would have hugged him back. You wonder if that's why he ran.)

\----

"I have paraplexis," Mikhaila Ilyushin tells you, when you all but drag her into your office when you've dealt with everything else that you can manage.

(You've seen most of the crew by now. You haven't seen Frank, because you know he wasn't injured and also _fuck no_ , and you haven't seen Alex, because you're not ready to open that can of worms yet. But you've seen almost everyone else.)

You stare at her for a moment, and then put your face in your hands. "How the hell did I miss that?" you mutter. "You were on the station for over a _year_ , Mikhaila!"

"I am very practiced at hiding it," she says.

And it isn't wrong. Looking at her, she doesn't show any signs. No jitters or uncoordinated movements. You remember Regina losing her mind over missing booster shots, and rub your face.

"When was your last dose?" you ask instead, because even if TranStar disallows employees with paraplexis from space (in _theory_ , anyway), they're also at the forefront of research into the condition. You know a bit more than average about it even if you weren't a researcher on the subject.

"Two days ago," Mikhaila answers.

You do the math.

" _During_ the outbreak?"

"Yes. Morgan administered it, if you're wondering."

That explains that. You sigh, and say, "You come by my office every three days for a check-up, Mikhaila Ilyushin, or I'll hunt you down and drag you there myself. This is serious."

"I know," Mikhaila says. "You don't need to show me your teeth, Doctor DeSilva. I already know that my life is limited."

Your ability to get her medication is limited, too. God, you hope Mary can get that Fabricator working.

"Okay," you say. "Is there anything else I should know? Did you get injured during the outbreak?"

"I wasn't hurt," Mikhaila says. "But, the paraplexis... It came on suddenly much worse than it ever had before, after the Typhon broke containment. I thought I was going to die."

_Didn't we all_ , but it's different, thinking you're going to get killed by aliens and your body betraying you. 

"I'll make a note," you say, as though you still have files on anyone. You're having to make new ones from scratch, asking about medical history, family history, things you could just look up before. "Keep your TranScribe on you - if it gets that bad again, _call me_."

"I will." You must look less than confident, because Mikhaila smiles at you in a way that's almost opposite the one you got from Morgan, all fierce determination. "I have too much to do yet to die. TranStar won't be rid of me that easily."

And that's that, you suppose.

\----

And last but not least - 

"Doctor Yu," you say.

"Doctor DeSilva," Alex replies. He looks exhausted. He hasn't stopped looking exhausted, even though you've been here for three days, as safe as you're going to get. Sarah is talking about taking some of the Security force to one of the other islands for news and supplies, people who aren't as recognizable as the heirs to TranStar's empire, former professional sports stars, and disgraced parapsychologists. "I appreciate your hard work, in making time for everyone here."

Well, almost everyone, but you sure as hell aren't going to talk to Alex Yu about that. "How are you feeling?" you open with, instead. "You reported no injuries during the outbreak, but Morgan said you lost consciousness when the - _Apex_ appeared."

Alex nods, fidgeting with his wrists. Almost everyone is still in their TranStar space uniforms, another reason for Sarah to go out, and Alex plays with the cuffs under his gloves nervously. "It was only brief," he says. "A reaction to the sudden loss of gravity, I think. I admit I've never handled microgravity particularly well."

You remember that from his file, you think. A prescription for stomach-settling medication. "Are you sure that's all?" you ask.

"It may have been psychically induced by the Apex," Alex admits. "Morgan and I were the ones closest to its... face, if it could be said to have such a thing. I remember..."

He goes quiet, and then shivers, almost invisibly. "The space between the stars was hungry indeed," is all he says in explanation, but you don't need anything more. You felt it, too, even in a pod sailing away from the station and getting further by the moment. The lance of fear down the back of your throat - 

Most of the others had reported it, as well, but only a few lost consciousness. "How many neuromods do you have, Doctor Yu?" you ask.

"Nine," Alex admits. "Primarily languages. One military, for small arms. One for classical calligraphy."

You nod. It's about in line with what you expected. Of course the CEO who created the neuromod has a large number of them. It would have been either that or none at all, given the effects of their removal.

"Those with more neuromods seem to have been more strongly affected," you say. "Excepting Morgan."

"He's always been exceptional," Alex says, voice fond but also somehow distant. You don't want to unpack it, the grief he has for the brother he thinks he's lost, ignoring the Morgan who's here. Your life isn't high enough payment for you to sort out their relationship. "But that is reassuring to hear. Thank you."

You're not sure that you've ever heard Alex thank someone sincerely before. You think that that was sincere.

"Is there anything else?" you say.

Alex gives you a wistful smile. "Nothing you can help with, I'm afraid," he says. "I feel... listless. Directionless. My life's work is gone, my brother hates me, and my father sent an assassin to kill us."

You aren't sure that you would say that Morgan hates him, unfortunately. You also don't see any value in correcting or reassuring him.

"You're right," you say. "I'm afraid I can't help with that." 

Alex nods, and takes a deep breath. "I am not going to throw my life away after Morgan was so insistent on saving it," he says. "So you don't need to concern yourself with that. I simply... need time to find new purpose."

"Time, at least, we seem to have," you say. 

"That we do, Doctor," Alex agrees. "That we do."

You want to demand of him, _how could you do that to your brother? To someone who loved you, who trusted you like that?_ You want to say to him, _Morgan doesn't hate you, and I don't understand how. Any reasonable person would._

You want to ask him, _was it all worth it, Alex?_ even though you can see the answer plain in every line of his body, like a disease.

You let him walk away.

\----

Austin, Darcy, and Kevin go to Honolulu, bringing back clothes, cell phones (real cell phones, even if they're pay-as-you-go burners, not TranStar branded bullshit), and news.

Officially, you're all dead. The destruction of Talos I was a tragic accident. The only survivor of the station's staff is poor Carolyn Wheeler, plus shuttle staff Rebekah Smart and Joe Spires. The three of them have already given three interviews between the three of them, two from Carolyn and one with the others. 

"What's really fucked up," Austin says, "is that _Pytheas_ is also reported as destroyed. Conspiracy theorists are sure to be going nuts about that one. Last signal came through maybe twelve hours before Morgan slapped the nuke on Talos."

Almost everyone has gathered up to hear the news, filling the cafeteria of the facility. You're all crowded around Austin, sitting on a table as he talks. Darcy sits in a chair next to him. Kevin is with Danielle in a corner, listening but also sorting out the half-dozen phones they brought back - not enough for everyone, but there's only so much they can afford without raising flags from TranStar. Alex and Morgan might have nearly infinite money between them, but it doesn't do any good when you can't spend it without painting targets on your backs.

"Any survivors?" Mikhaila asks.

"Officially, no," Darcy says. "In reality? Well, we're forty-two people more than 'no survivors' ourselves."

"Pytheas had two shuttles and a mass driver as well as escape pods," Morgan says. "There were plenty of ways off it if you were determined enough. Doesn't mean anyone _managed_ it, but there's a chance."

None of you think too highly of the chances - not even Morgan, you're pretty sure. But no one has it in them to say so.

"Official story is a viral attack on the reactor systems," Austin says. "TranStar is trying to pin the whole thing on anyone it'll stick to - KASMA, anti-corporate terrorists, the Icarus Principle, the list goes on. Bunch of corporate speak for nothing."

"We checked a few of Austin's favorite conspiracy nut hangouts before we left the city," Darcy says. "There's one or two shots of the Apex that some lucky bastard got that are getting passed around, but all but the most out there ones are dismissing those as photoshopped. There's a _bunch_ of shots of Pytheas still sitting pretty on the lunar surface, though. Sure as hell doesn't look like any reactors exploded out _there_."

"Were there Typhon experiments on Pytheas?" Mikhaila asks. It's half angry demand and half begging to be wrong.

"Don't look at me," Morgan says. "If I ever knew, I sure as hell don't now."

The whole group's attention, as one, turns towards Alex. He's standing at the edge of the group, and he looks like he wants to retreat further as he says, "There were."

" _Volunteer_ experiments?" Mikhaila demands, practically spitting the word.

This time Alex doesn't reply. He just nods, his eyes closed, awaiting judgement. 

"You..." Mikhaila stands, her hands balled into fists. "You are lucky it was your brother who saved us all. No one else would have let something like you live."

And she turns and marches out, footsteps loud in the silence that no one else is willing to break.

\----

Days pass. The abandoned facility becomes less abandoned, more livable. Rodney and Mickey get gardens set up, with TranStar's rapidly-growing seeds, and that plus the fish from down on the shoreline makes a lot of your food anxieties disappear. Everyone has their own rooms, small but properly private, and you think that alone saves what threads of your sanity are left.

Aside from the world thinking you're dead, everything is going almost suspiciously well. You expect it to come crashing down at the hands of TranStar quasimilitary forces with guns.

But the way it comes crashing down is Danielle's voice blasting over the intercoms, "There's Coral spotted over Vegas."

\----

"Well, that's it," says David Branch, sitting on a cafeteria table as everyone gathers up again. "Earth's fucked. Nice knowing all of you, except Alex, Frank, and maybe Steve."

You don't exactly like David Branch, not since Talos sent him into a paranoia spiral that makes you wish you had a psych around, but you warm to him just a little, for that. For having a list of least favorite people that's basically the same as your own.

No one can really argue with the conclusion, though. There's no containing something that can fly in atmo, and there's plenty of Typhon that can fly. If things in Vegas have progressed far enough that there's Coral forming, then there are probably mimics all over the continent already.

"If it's in Vegas and not Seattle, it wasn't the Advent," Morgan says. "There's that, at least."

"Any word on an origin point?" Sarah says. 

"I found an article about a TranStar shuttle found crashed in the desert," Danielle says. "But the only person on board - well, the only _corpse_ on board - was in a KASMA suit, so they're pointing fingers at each other, of course."

"We'll be safe here," says a voice that - don't think about it, Emmanuella, don't _think about it_. "Even if they do fly out all over the world, there's not enough people here to bother with. We stay and we're safe as long as we keep the doors closed."

"Don't count on it," Morgan says. He gives Frank a look that manages to filter all of the _What do you know about the Typhon, you coward, you never even met one face to face_ down to a laser point. "Sure, they'll go for the cities first, but they'll come after whatever they can find eventually."

Frank doesn't look convinced, but that's about all the longer you're able to stand looking at him. Sarah says, "At least we're forewarned. And lucky enough to be on an island. We have a little time."

Alex, from his usual place on the absolute fringe, says, "We probably have enough data to reconstruct the Typhon Gates used on Pytheas for containment. We didn't have them on Talos because of interference from the magnetosphere, but that shouldn't affect their use on Earth."

"You'd think that would have been a priority," Danielle mutters.

"The container with prototypes from Pytheas arrived on Talos during the outbreak itself," Igwe says. "It was the one that exploded and caused the hull rupture."

Austin says, "Welp," with a bit of a pop on the p. "Guess that's what they call too little, too late."

Morgan sighs heavily. "Okay, well - Danielle, send me that data and I'll see if I can make heads or tails of it and get something working. Shouldn't be too hard to back-engineer if I've already done it once." A beat. "Assuming I did it once?"

It's a question cast towards Alex, who frowns and says, "It was one of Riley's projects, but I know you gave her feedback on it."

"Hopefully some of it's still rattling around in there," Morgan says. "Right. Guess we get to start cleaning out the labs now, so I'm going to go do that."

You can't blame him for jumping ship on this conversation. Alex looks like he's going to follow, but Sarah says, "I think it'd be best for the Security team if you explained exactly how these Typhon Gates work," with enough pressure in it to keep him there. 

You're tempted to go after Morgan, but you see Mikhaila slip out as the group starts to break up into people arguing about what you should do, long term, and what this means for their families (those who have any family left), and that will have to do.

\----

Two weeks, before the Typhon actually have enough of a presence in Hawaii for anyone to notice. You get used to carrying a pistol, every time you go outside. You had to learn to shoot the old-fashioned way, under the eyes of Austin and Kevin, because even if you wanted to pick up the skill from a neuromod, Morgan's pockets didn't have enough "exotic" material for everyone.

The Typhon Gates go up, and they're functional as far as you can test, which here means that they refuse to open for Morgan unless he shorts them out. You don't have any real Typhon to test them with.

Another week, before the turrets outside - no longer portable but bolted to the ground, to prevent Technopaths from flying off with them - actually fire on something. It was in the middle of the night, so the only reason anyone knows it was a Weaver is the security footage.

The week after that, just as March is turning to April, Morgan comes into your office.

"Something wrong, Morgan?" you ask. You're indexing the 'over the counter' drugs Mary synthesized for you yesterday, but you slide the box to the side. 

"Not exactly," he says. "I just... Look, can I ask you for a favor?"

"You can ask," you say. "Doesn't mean I'll grant it."

He gives you a thin grin, a little wild. Morgan has stopped running himself _as_ ragged as he did that first week, but he hasn't ever really _stopped_. You're not sure that he knows how, anymore. Just another of the things that you all joke about being left behind on Talos, because if you can laugh about it you can ignore how much the lack of things like stability and trust and _Nicole Hague, Jada Marks, Abigail Foy, and every other name_ eat at you in the dark hours.

"Best I could have asked for," he says. "You're always honest with me. You can call it payback for the escape pod, if you want."

You can see how he would appreciate that, after everything. You really can.

You sit in your desk chair and Morgan sits on the exam seat in a way that's almost a flop, a complete counter to his last time in here. You vaguely jot down _potential mood swings_ on the psych profile that you're definitely not keeping or building in your head.

"Alex is going to make a proposal to the crew tomorrow," he says. "I'm not going to tell you what it is, or ask you to vote in any particular way on it. That's your decision. But..."

"But?" you prompt.

"If it goes through," Morgan says, taking a deep breath. "If it goes through, I want you to make sure that whatever comes of it knows that 'no' is an option. I want to ask you to be the example, I guess, of what acting with ethics means."

It's... weirdly flattering, to have this asked of you. Damning everyone else around you with faint praise, maybe, but flattering, maybe. 

You can't help but be suspicious. "'Whatever comes of it'? Morgan, just what the hell - "

"Please," Morgan says. "Just wait till tomorrow."

You give him a distinct look over, suspicious, but he says, "I agreed to this. Really, I did," which is _absolutely_ not reassuring in any way.

"Morgan _Yu_ \- "

"I know," he says quietly. "I know, doc. I don't know if I could say no to Alex even after everything, but this was my idea. Or it was once upon a time."

"So were a lot of other things," you say. "Things which were distinctly not _good_ ideas."

Morgan laughs, that hollowed-out laugh he has when things don't matter anymore. "That's why I'm here," he says. "The only thing that's ever saved me is having back-up plans Alex doesn't know about. I've made more of them than even I know about."

You exhale quietly, almost a sigh. "And your back-up this time is a sense of ethics?"

"Let me put it this way," Morgan says. "If you ever encountered an alien that _didn't_ want to eat your face, how would you treat it?"

"To the best of my ability," you say, immediately.

Morgan just nods, like that's the answer he was waiting for. "You might be the person who has to set that standard," he says. "I want to make sure it's a good one."

"I can't promise anything," you say. "Not until I have more context."

"That's... Okay," he says. "That's fair. Thanks for listening, I guess."

He stands to go. You stand after him, catch him by the arm. It sends an unsettling tingle up through your fingers for a moment.

"Morgan," you say. "Am I going to regret it, if I say yes?"

He slides his arm out of your grip, but turns to look at you straight on. His eye isn't red anymore, you notice, but there's a discoloration in the iris that clouds most of it in an almost-black purple, and part of the sclera is distinctly darker than it should be, around what was the injection site. Heterochromia in a color no human should have, the alien in his brain visible coming out of his face.

"I hope not," Morgan says. "I really hope not."

\----

Alex's proposal is insane. Outright _insane_. Putting an imprint of Morgan's brain in a Typhon? Running it through a simulation of the outbreak to see if it's capable of being _human_? Of bridging the gap between humanity and the Typhon?

Forget what he said to get Morgan to agree to this. What the hell did he say to get Mikhaila Ilyushin and Danielle Sho on board?

You go back to your room, to your place of safety, because you don't know where else to go. Once you're there, you throw yourself onto the bed, wishing you could still throw a tantrum like a teenager without feeling ridiculous. You could go for some good old-fashioned pillow screaming right now.

It's insane. Even if they're going to do this, surely there's a better option than Morgan, as volatile as his mental state can be - 

There isn't, the adult Emmanuella recognizes. Morgan was the one who made so many decisions on Talos, that both showed who he is and _made_ him into who he is now. If Alex is going to... to _speedrun making a person_ , the only candidate with suitable experiences is Morgan.

And if you're going to have two of someone around who can murder everyone at a thought, then the only people you probably trust _to_ be the model for the Typhon cross are Morgan, Sarah, and Mikhaila. Paraplexis knocks the latter out of the running for anything with neuromods or Typhon neurology involved, and you can't blame Sarah for not lining up to volunteer.

You understand why Morgan is the only choice. And you understand the desperation to do something, try _something_ , as the world goes to shit around you. Even if it's too little, too late - 

(If you hadn't been locked in that pod with Frank, you could easily have died. But you'll never know, just like you'll never know if you could have saved lives if you were there.)

You understand why Morgan asked you. You hate it, but you understand what he was thinking, better than you like.

They're making a _person_ in the labs. One that might in theory be just like Morgan, but when even Morgan isn't 'just like Morgan,' who knows what that even means. And that person will come out of the simulation just like Morgan, maybe worse, kept in a simulation without their consent, and the fact that there's no other way, no way to test for empathy without putting living people at risk _except_ a simulation... You can see the necessity of it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't turn your stomach.

You understand why Morgan asked you. For the sake of that hypothetical person, if by some miracle they do succeed. You understand, but _God_ , you wish he hadn't. There's a reason you never had children. You never wanted the responsibility of another human being, never wanted to see someone you cared about that much go through the awful things this world has to offer. Being an older sister was bad enough.

But if you don't, who will? And if no one does, what irreparable harm might come of it?

Alex asked everyone to take a week to think about it. Given the way Alex works, that means it's almost certain that it will happen, because he knows exactly the kind of things to say to bring someone around to his way of thinking. Morgan isn't wrong that he's hard to say no to.

But Alex can damn well sit and stew about your opinion until the official vote. He's not the one whose opinion you care about.

Morgan's TranScribe goes to voicemail, which doesn't surprise you. You're sure he's got plenty to think about and deal with, when it comes to this.

"I'll do it," you tell his inbox. You don't tell him, _we're even after this_ , because it's not about paying him back for saving your life, and it never was. "But if it all goes to hell anyway, it's on your head, not mine."

As though the world hasn't gone to hell already. You hang up and drop the TranScribe onto your pillows. You've accepted - you accepted a long time ago - that you can't stop people from hurting each other, from being born into bad situations. All you can do is try to pick them up after and put them back together.

But that doesn't mean you have to like it.


End file.
